Chapter IVThe American Response:Military Policies and Plans, 1940-41

The policy of hemisphere defense merged from September 1940 onward with the
broader policy of supporting the active opponents of Axis aggression. The two
policies were complementary. Germany could not launch any major attack against
the New World so long as Great Britain maintained naval superiority in the
eastern Atlantic. To maintain that superiority, the British Navy had to be based
on the British Isles. With the position of Britain much better assured than it
had appeared to be during the dark days of June, the United States Government
now considered it vital to bolster that position by supplying arms and other
equipment to the maximum extent compatible with essential requirements of its
own expanding Army and Navy. American officials also judged that a policy of
strong and overt support of Britain would be the one best calculated to stay
Japanese armed aggression in the Far East. By December the United States had
decided to extend more open aid to China as well. In a pre-election speech on 26
October 1940, Secretary of State Hull summarized the new military policy in two
simple terms: "One, to rearm to the utmost; two, to help the Allies with
supplies."1
As the Secretary subsequently acknowledged; by
the end of 1940 the United States was "acting no longer under the precepts of
neutrality, but under those of self-defense."2

Secretary Hull had sound reasons for justifying the supply of arms to nations
fighting Axis aggression on the ground of self-defense. The military and naval
forces of the United States were far from ready in the fall of 1940 to carry out
a policy of hemisphere defense. The Army, in fact, was not prepared to do much
more than conduct a static defense of United States territory in the Western
Hemisphere. Despite the Army's growing numbers, it had no large ground or air
units ready for offensive employment in terms of either training or equipment.
It would be many months before the Army could be ready to carry out the measures
in defense of the hemisphere that a RAINBOW 4 situation-the collapse of Great
Britain-would require.

--82--

Although the Navy was far better prepared than the Army for immediate action,
national policy continued to dictate that the bulk of American naval strength
remain in the eastern Pacific as a deterrent to further Japanese aggression.
Construction of ships for a two-ocean Navy that could provide protection for
both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts of the New World was just beginning. Until
the United States could rely on its own forces to protect the Western Hemisphere
from Axis aggression, the nation's leaders believed that its security depended
on keeping the Axis Powers in check by supporting the armed forces of the
British Empire and of China.

Emergency Expeditionary Force Plans

Under these circumstances there was little that the United States could hope
to do to counter a movement of German forces through Spain toward the South
Atlantic. Marshal Pétain's announcement on 24 October that Vichy France would
support the Axis war effort against Great Britain had seemed in Washington to
presage easy German access to French North and West Africa. Hitler's meeting
with Franco had suggested the likelihood of Spanish collaboration with Germany
as well. If assured of French and Spanish collaboration, the Germans could
easily overawe or overrun Portugal and occupy strategic positions in the
Portuguese as well as the Spanish islands. Once emplaced in French West Africa
and on the Atlantic islands, the Germans-whether they had originally planned to
do so or not-could launch an attack across the South Atlantic against the bulge
of Brazil. This was the very danger that had so impressed American military
planners in 1939, but which United States forces in the fall of 1940 were still
virtually impotent to meet.

The United States was particularly concerned about the fate of the Portuguese
Azores Islands. As early as March 1940 President Roosevelt had discussed the
danger of German action against the Azores with the American minister to
Portugal, then home on leave. A report to the President during June elicited the
following opinion from Secretary of State Hull:

The attached letter . . . seems to involve naval and possibly
military action on our part in preventing the occupation of the Azores by German,
Italian, or possibly Spanish forces. For practical reasons I do not see that
there is anything that this country can do, as much as we might
like to.3

During July the Department of State instructed its representatives in Lisbon
and Madrid to inform the Portuguese and Spanish Governments of the "deep
concern" of the United States for the status of their island possessions in the

--83--

Atlantic.4
In August the German Foreign Office took note of negotiations
between the United States and Portugal, concerning the Azores and guessed that
they were being considered for a joint Anglo-American
naval base.5
British proposals for combined Anglo-American operations in the Atlantic (in case the
United States entered the war), drafted in June 1940 and discussed with the
American naval representative in London during September, contemplated the
occupation of the Portuguese islands by United States
forces.6
As already noted,
the joint estimate of 25 September held that an American entry into the Azores
might be necessary if German forces moved into Spain and Portugal, and in
October Army and Navy staff officers drafted a plan for a quick occupation of
the Azores by an American force built around a reinforced division supported by
a sizable naval squadron containing at least one aircraft
carrier.7
Aside from considerations of policy, the obstacles to carrying out this plan were the lack
of a division ready to undertake the task and the lack of available naval forces
to support the operation.

A more feasible and realistic emergency expeditionary force plan evolved out
of concern over the status of French possessions in the New World. Immediately
after Pétain's announcement of 24 October, the United States sent a sharp
warning to Vichy stating that any French connivance with Germany "would most
definitely wreck the traditional friendship between the French and American
peoples" and implying that such French action would justify American occupation
of French possessions in the Western Hemisphere.8
This strong message offended
the French, but it also helped to dampen their enthusiasm for collaboration with
Hitler. The British had wanted the United States to take an even stronger stand:
they wanted backing for Free French uprisings in French possessions in Africa as
well as in the New World. The United States and Great Britain were both gravely
concerned over the possibility that the Vichy French might permit units of their
Navy at Dakar and at Martinique to join the Axis in operations against the
British Navy. The United States went so far in November as to offer to buy two
unfinished French battleships, one located at Dakar and the other at Casablanca,
in order to keep them out of German hands. The Vichy Government rejected the
offer, though it repeated its earlier pledge not to allow French naval forces to
be used offensively against the British. As for France's New World possessions,
the United States really preferred to let them alone

--84--

provided the agreement for maintaining the status quo, informally negotiated
in August with Admiral Roberts, the French governor,
could be maintained.9

Pending the receipt of satisfactory assurances from Vichy, the United States
prepared to occupy Martinique and Guadeloupe. President Roosevelt in late October
directed the Navy to draft a plan for an emergency operation, to be executed
on three days' notice. The Navy drew up a plan calling for an assault on Martinique
by a strong naval force (including two battleships and two carriers) but with
only twenty-eight hundred marines as the landing force. The Navy asked the Army
to be prepared to support the landing with two reinforced regiments totaling
sixty-eight hundred men and to schedule them to sail from New York five days
after the operation began. This plan assumed that the assault would meet with
no more than token opposition. At this time there were between seven and eight
thousand French soldiers and sailors on Martinique, and its principal port,
Fort de France, had strong harbor defenses well supplied with ammunition. The
Army planners therefore objected to the assumption of token resistance and urged
that an expeditionary force of twenty-five thousand, properly trained and equipped,
be readied before the United States undertook any operation such as that contemplated
against Martinique. The War Plans Division assumed that the French, heartened
by their success at Dakar the preceding month, would resist; it held that a
defeat in the first American military operation of the war would have most serious
repercussions in Latin America and might "destroy all progress in consolidating
the Western Hemisphere made to date." The Army planners therefore recommended
that the United States should first invoke the procedure for emergency occupation
of European possessions prescribed at the Havana Conference and in the meantime
maintain a tight blockade of Martinique and give the Army's 1st Infantry Division
intensive training in landing operations in
Puerto Rico.10

Both General Marshall and Secretary of War Stimson shared the doubts of the
Army planners that an immediate operation against Martinique was feasible, and
they also doubted its wisdom even if it were feasible. They feared that the
Navy plan might result in a repulse comparable to the British-Free French fiasco
at Dakar. Further, Mr. Stimson pointed out, precipitate American action might
have a very harmful effect on the critical situation then pending in North Africa;
it might, indeed, drive French Africa right into the arms
of Germany.11
The Army nevertheless alerted the 1st

--85--

Division and requested its commander to formulate a plan for expediting its
training and availability for emergency action. On 2 November General Marshall
asked the Joint Board to revise the earlier joint plan for a Martinique
operation in order to provide an overwhelming force that would insure quick
success, should an occupation become
necessary.12

The Joint Planning Committee undertook the revision of the Martinique plan
during November, and the 1st Division drafted a subordinate plan for
establishing three task forces (A, B, and C), each built around one of its
infantry regiments. Task Forces A and B numbered about five thousand men each,
Task Force C about seven thousand. Only Task Force A had reached a state of
training that permitted its assignment as part of the assault force in the
projected Martinique operation; Task Force B might be used in a landing against
lightly held Guadeloupe, and Task Force C constituted little more than an
untrained reserve. This was all that the Army's best trained infantry division
could contribute to an emergency expeditionary force at
the end of 1940.13

Fortunately, from the point of view both of policy and of military readiness,
no operation against Martinique had to be undertaken. The Navy had sent Admiral
Greenslade, who had previously arranged the existing informal understanding
with the French Governor, Admiral Robert, back to Martinique with instructions
to negotiate a new agreement that would guarantee the maintenance of the status
quo. Faced with the alternative of an American bombardment and occupation,
Admiral Robert on 3 November accepted a "gentleman's agreement": the
governor promised not to move any of the French naval vessels at Martinique
except on two days' notice to the consul and the naval observer of the United
States at Fort de France and then only for purposes of maintenance or (in the
case of one small ship) administrative contact with the other French West Indian
colonies; he promised also the continued immobilization of the airplanes and
gold stranded on Martinique in June; finally, he promised to notify American
representatives if the Vichy authorities proposed his replacement. In return,
Admiral Greenslade agreed to continue the supply of essential foodstuffs and
fuel to the French West Indies.14
With slight modifications, this agreement remained in effect until
the summer of 1943, though on several occasions after November 1940 the

--86--

United States was to question the reliability of Admiral Robert and to
prepare again for the forceful occupation of Martinique.

President Roosevelt in mid-November offered the French ambassadorship to Admiral
William D. Leahy, then governor of Puerto Rico, and when Admiral Leahy reached
Vichy in January 1941 he found the situation very different from the one that
had so greatly alarmed the United States during October. On 13 December 1940
Marshal Pétain dismissed Laval from his posts of Vice Premier and Foreign Minister.
Further, Pétain refused to attend the collaboration ceremony the Fuehrer had
planned to stage in Paris on 15 December; instead, he sent a message to President
Roosevelt reiterating his solemn promise that the French Fleet would be scuttled
before it would be allowed to fall into German hands, and otherwise indicating
his decision to avoid any active collaboration with
the Nazis.15
With these assurances in hand, the President instructed Admiral
Leahy to tell the Vichy authorities that American policy toward the French West
Indies and French Guiana would continue to be the maintenance of status quo,
so long as the United States was assured that "neither those possessions
nor their resources will ever be used to the detriment of the United States
or the American republics."16

The hurried planning for an assault on Martinique had a beneficial effect on
Army preparations for emergency operations, despite the indefinite postponement
of the Martinique operation itself. In June the Army had arranged for the 1st
and 3d Infantry Divisions on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, respectively, to
receive special equipment for training in landing operations in order to prepare
them for use as emergency expeditionary forces. The Army also hoped to train the
two divisions in joint amphibious exercises with
the Navy.17
Little had been done
to carry out these arrangements before the Army started to plan the projected
operation against Martinique. In October the War Plans Division had recommended
to the Chief of Staff a broader plan, involving the establishment of an
expeditionary corps on the Atlantic coast to consist of one Regular Army and two
National Guard divisions with six supporting coast artillery regiments and
necessary service units. Units of the corps were to be exempted from furnishing
cadres for training other forces and were to be given equipment priorities. The
requirements of the rapidly expanding Army made adoption of such an ambitious
plan impracticable, and

--87--

General Marshall approved the exemption and equipment priority only for the
Regular Army division and for one antiaircraft regiment. The 1st Division and
the 68th Coast Artillery (Antiaircraft) Regiment were then earmarked for use in
emergency expeditionary forces with these exemptions and priorities. The other
units were to form the expeditionary force
reserve.18

During the winter and spring of 1940-41, both the 1st Division on the
Atlantic coast and the 3d Division on the Pacific managed to obtain landing
equipment that permitted limited amphibious training, though plans for joint
training with Navy and Marine forces remained in abeyance. The general emergency
expeditionary force plan that was developed during this period, based on RAINBOW
4, called for the reinforced 1st Division to be ready to engage in any landing
operations that might be required in defense of the Caribbean area or Brazil;
preparation of the reinforced 30th Infantry Division to relieve the 1st Division
after it had been engaged, in order to free the 1st Division for a new
operation; designation and preparation of the reinforced 44th Infantry Division
as a defense force for Newfoundland; and continued amphibious training of the 3d
Division on the Pacific coast as a nucleus for an expeditionary force to be
dispatched if necessary to northwestern South America. While the Martinique
project had acted as a spur to the development of this general plan, actual
training of the many units involved continued to lag; in fact, until the summer
of 1941, the 1st Division and its supporting units (a force numbering about
25,000) remained the only Army ground organization even relatively well prepared
for action against armed opposition along the Atlantic
front.19

New Definitions of National Policy

The nation's lack of readiness to take military steps to deal with Axis threats
in the Atlantic, even those close to American shores, was paralleled by objections
to using American naval power as an effective check to Japan's aggression in
the Pacific. Prime Minister Churchill on 4 October 1940 suggested to President
Roosevelt that he send a substantial detachment of the United States Fleet to
Britain's Singapore base. His proposal met with

--88--

strong opposition from the admirals and from General Marshall, though
Secretary of War Stimson urged the President to shift the bulk of the fleet to
Singapore forthwith.20
Admiral
Stark and his staff questioned whether the United States could continue
indefinitely to rely on British naval power to maintain control in the eastern
Atlantic. In any event, the Navy felt that if the United States had to undertake
new military operations in the Atlantic area, it would have to move a
substantial part of the fleet into the Atlantic to assure continued naval
control there.21
General Marshall, believing as he did that "if we lose in the Atlantic we lose
everywhere," wished to keep American naval strength in the Pacific available for
a quick shift to the Atlantic in case the situation
worsened.22
President
Roosevelt apparently favored some sort of naval demonstration in the Pacific
that would clearly indicate to the Japanese that the United States Government
had no intention of being bullied by them.23

The President and his advisers, though ignorant of the details of Axis war
planning, had a fairly accurate appreciation in October 1940 of the dangers to
the national security that loomed in the none-too-distant future. Nevertheless,
they also realized that the nation's military and naval forces would not be
ready to deal effectively with these dangers for many months to come. They knew,
too, that a large majority of the American people were opposed to direct
participation in the war, except in actual defense of Western Hemisphere
territory. October 1940 also saw the climax of a Presidential election campaign
in which both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Willkie felt compelled to say that they had
no intention of getting the United States into the war or of ever permitting
American boys to be sent overseas to fight. Secretary of State Hull on the other
hand, had the courage to speak publicly before the election of the dangers
facing the United States, and of their logical consequences:

There can be nothing more dangerous for our nation than for
us to assume that the avalanche of conquest could under no circumstances reach
any vital portion of this hemisphere. Oceans give the nations of this hemisphere
no guarantee against the possibility of economic, political, or military attack
from abroad. Oceans are barriers but they are also highways. Barriers of distance
are merely barriers of time. Should the would-be conquerors gain control of
other continents, they would next concentrate on perfecting their control of
the seas, of the air over the seas, and of the world's economy; they might then

--89--

be able with ships and with planes to strike at the communication
lines, the commerce, and the life of this hemisphere; and ultimately we might
find ourselves compelled to fight on our own soil, under our own skies, in defense
of our independence and our very lives.24

The situation called for a new definition of national policy and for military
planning in accordance with that definition. Army and Navy planners needed
something more specific to act on than Mr. Hull's definition of American policy
toward Japan, which was described in late November as a "policy of slowing Japan
up, so to speak, as much as we could by fighting a rear guard diplomatic action,
without doing it so stringently as to drive her to get her supplies by making an
attack on the Netherlands."25

An Air Corps staff analysis in November 1940 stated that there appeared to be
three national military policies in prospect, any one of which might be put into
effect in the near future: Western Hemisphere defense; an offensive in the Far
East; and an offensive in Europe, in association with Great Britain. It went on
to state that "the uncertainty as to which National Military Policy will be put
into effect and the wide disparity between the possible lines of action that may
be undertaken make the acceptance of any one of these Policies by the military
authorities, without the definite advice of the National Government, a matter of
questionable procedure." But since the lack of any basic policy would lead to
chaos, this analysis recommended that the Air Corps accept Western Hemisphere
defense as the most probable and at any rate the most essential policy to guide
its preparations. General Marshall approved the recommendation on 29 November
1940.26

The impetus for a new definition of national policy came from the Chief of
Naval Operations, Admiral Stark. After discussing the war outlook with Secretary
Knox in late October, Admiral Stark and his staff drafted a detailed analysis of
the situation facing the United States. He stated his understanding of current
major national objectives as the "preservation of the territorial, economic, and
ideological integrity of the United States, plus that of the remainder of the
Western Hemisphere; the prevention of the disruption of the British Empire, with
all that such a consummation implies; and the diminution of the offensive
military power of Japan, with a view to the retention of our economic and
political interests in the Far East." In conclusion, Admiral Stark presented for
consideration and decision by the President and

--90--

the War and Navy Departments four alternate courses of action. Plan A proposed
that the United States concentrate its military effort on Western Hemisphere
defense; the United States would continue to supply material aid to the allied
forces opposing the Axis Powers, but even if drawn into open war its armed forces
would send only small detachments overseas to assist the allies in the fighting.
Plan B called for a full offensive by United States forces against Japan in
the western Pacific, coupled with a strictly defensive posture in the Atlantic.
Plan C envisaged full-scale offensives by American military forces across both
oceans. Admiral Stark dismissed Plans B and C as impracticable, even though
the latter was the only course of action that (if successful) would insure attainment
of the major national objectives with which he had premised his analysis. Plan
D contemplated a major offensive across the Atlantic while maintaining the defensive
in the Pacific; initially, American participation would be principally naval,
but eventually it would probably have to include action by a large ground force
in a major offensive to be launched from African or western European bases.
Although Admiral Stark recognized that the American people were at this time
opposed to sending a large expeditionary force across the Atlantic, he concluded
nevertheless that Plan D was "likely to be the most fruitful for the United
States, particularly if we enter the war at an early date." Despite this
conclusion, the Chief of Naval Operations recommended that "until such
time as the United States should decide to engage its full forces in war,"
it should "pursue a course that will most rapidly increase the military
strength of both the Army and Navy, that is to say, adopt Alternative (A) without
hostilities." Whatever the decision, Admiral Stark believed it essential
that Army and Navy officers be authorized at once to engage in secret staff
conversations with British and Dutch military representatives to insure a unified
and coordinated military effort "should the United States find it necessary
to enter the war."27

The Army planners concurred in general with Admiral Stark's analysis and
conclusions, though they objected to his definition of major national objectives
as being too broad to be sustained by the nation's existing military and naval
strength. Instead, they proposed a definition of national objectives in the
following terms:

Preservation of the territorial, economic, and ideological
integrity of the United States.

--91--

Aid to Great Britain short of war.

No military commitments in the Far East.

Preparations for an eventual unlimited war in the Atlantic in support of
Great Britain.28

The Army planners pointed out that the Stark memorandum ignored the
possibilities of air action against the Axis Powers, and they also observed that
Great Britain did not then control any land area from which a large-scale ground
offensive could be launched against the enemy. The Army planners indorsed Plan
D, modified to include intensive air support, as the best course for the United
States should it enter the war on its own initiative. But, like Admiral Stark,
the planners recommended that the War Department support Plan A-hemisphere
defense-until such time as the United States decided to participate in military
operations. They also recommended that the Joint Planning Committee draft a
revised version of the Stark memorandum for presentation by the Joint Board to
the President for decision.29
A
few days later General Marshall asked the Joint Board to prepare a "National
Estimate" along the lines of the Stark memorandum. The President, after reading
Admiral Stark's paper, had said that he would like to have the State, War, and
Navy Departments draft a joint estimate. This led to the Navy's subsequent
insistence that official Department of State approval of the Joint Planning
Committee's estimate, transmitted to the Joint Board on 21 December, be secured
before its submission to the President.30
In the meantime, Mr.
Roosevelt had authorized secret staff conversations with the British, and
Admiral Stark on 2 December invited the British to participate in staff conversations
in Washington.31
The prospective Anglo-American conference provided an additional
reason for clarifying the national and military policies of the United States.

The services had reason enough already to ask for a new definition of policy.
The only current and approved joint war plan--RAINBOW 4--constituted
the basis for
the Army's existing Operations Plan and Concentration Tables. But this joint
plan had been adopted in June 1940 and had been predicated on the probability of
Britain's defeat and on the necessity of the

--92--

United States acting virtually alone in defending the Atlantic front of the
Western Hemisphere. Since June Britain's prospects had greatly improved, though
the British position was still far from being fully assured; on the other hand,
Japan's intentions had become much more evident and ominous. The Army recognized
that the existing RAINBOW 4 war plans were out of date and was engaged in
revising them. What the Army and Navy really needed was a new joint war plan,
one that would accord with the conclusions and recommendations of the Stark
memorandum, as amended in the Joint Planning Committee's estimate of December.
In essence, the Army and Navy now anticipated the probability of a period of
transition from a RAINBOW 4 to a
RAINBOW 5 situation. The RAINBOW 5 concept
called for establishment of a firm defensive position in the Western Hemisphere
and maintenance of the defensive in the Pacific, and thereafter projection of
American military power offensively in the eastern Atlantic in association with
the forces of Great Britain. Almost no work had been done on the
joint RAINBOW 5
plan, and yet it was the one most similar to the services' new estimate of the
way the situation was most likely to develop.32

At the beginning of December 1940 it appeared to the Secretaries of State,
War, and Navy that, unless the United States took more decisive steps to support
Great Britain, the British might be doomed to early defeat. To combat the steady
pounding of German air and sea attacks, Britain needed more airplanes and more
escort vessels. The state of aircraft production in the United States would not
permit any great increase in plane deliveries for some time to come, and the
Secretaries had been informed even if the United States had wished to turn over
more destroyers to England, the British did not have the crews to man them. To
the three Secretaries, the only solution appeared to be direct naval
participation in convoying goods to England.33
In an Army-Navy conference on 16
December called by the Secretary of War, Mr. Stimson, Mr. Knox, General
Marshall, and Admiral Stark found themselves unanimously agreed "that this
emergency could hardly be passed over without this country being drawn into the
war eventually," and also "that the eventual big act will have to be to save the
life line of Great Britain

--93--

in the North Atlantic."34
Their agreement was precipitated by Admiral Stark's prediction that in view of its
current rate of shipping losses Great Britain could not hold out longer than six
months. They jointly agreed that the President should be urged immediately to
"consider some method for our Naval cooperation in the convoying of shipping to
the British Isles."35

President Roosevelt, during a West Indian cruise in early December, had
reflected on the means by which the United States could increase its aid to
Great Britain, and he returned to Washington on 16 December with a plan
introduced in Congress on 10 January as House Resolution 1776, which became
known after its passage two months later as the
Lend-Lease Act.36
That the President had also thought deeply on the broad strategical problems facing the
United States is evident from a letter he wrote to the High Commissioner of the
Philippines, Francis B. Sayre, on the last day of 1940. "For practical
purposes," he stated, "there is going on a world conflict, in which there are
aligned on one side Japan, Germany and Italy, and on the other side China, Great
Britain and the United States." While the United States was not involved in the
hostilities, it had a very great interest in the fortunes of the nations with
which it was aligned. Great Britain was on the defensive everywhere, not only in
the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, "but wherever there is a British
possession or a British ship-and that means all over the world." Current
American help to the defense of the British Isles was not enough. "They are
defended," continued the President, "not only by measures of defense carried out
locally but also by distant and wide-spread economic, military, and naval
activities which both diminish the vital strength of their enemies and at the
same time prevent those enemies from concentrating the full force of their armed
power against the heart and nerve center of the Empire." Since in the nature of
things the British strategy had to be global, the American "strategy of giving
them assistance toward ensuring our own security must envisage both sending of
supplies to England and helping to prevent a closing of channels of
communication to and from various parts of the world, so that other important
sources of supply and other theaters of action will not be denied to the
British." Within its means and by measures short of war, the President
concluded, the United States ought to support the British everywhere, including
the Far East where a southward

--94--

advance by the Japanese would certainly diminish Great Britain's chances of
winning the war.37

A week later, the President in his annual message to Congress asserted, "the
future and the safety of our country are overwhelmingly involved in events far
beyond our borders," and "at no previous time has American security been as
seriously threatened from without as it is today." The United States, he said,
had adopted a policy of all-out national defense, of full support to all nations
resisting aggression "thereby keeping war away from our hemisphere," and of
refusing to acquiesce in any peace dictated by aggressors or sponsored by
appeasers.38
The third element in this definition of policy had a far-reaching
implication: the British could avoid such a peace only by winning the war, and
American observers were now convinced that Great Britain could not win the war
unless it received far greater military support from the United States.

The Army and Navy presented their joint estimate of the situation to the
Department of State on 3 January 1941 for official Department of State approval,
in accordance with the President's wish expressed to Admiral Stark in November.
Secretary Hull called the joint paper excellent and indicated his general
agreement with it, but he did not want to give a formal blessing to what he
called "a technical military statement of the present situation." General
Marshall and Admiral Stark had to content themselves by leaving a copy of the
estimate with Secretary Hull and affirming to him the necessity of a very
definite statement of national policy upon which they could "base detailed plans
for cooperation between our own Army and Navy and between the British and
ourselves, if we should enter the war."39

President Roosevelt made the necessary decisions on national and military
policy in two separate actions during January. On 16 January, at the conclusion
of a lengthy conference with Secretaries Hull, Stimson, and Knox, General
Marshall, and Admiral Stark, the President issued an oral directive. First, he
stated that the Navy should stand on the defensive in the Pacific with the
United States Fleet based on Hawaii and should not attempt to reinforce its
Asiatic Fleet. Second, the President ordered the Navy to continue its Atlantic
patrol and to prepare to convoy shipping to Great Britain. Third, he said "that
the Army should not be committed to any aggressive action until it was fully
prepared to undertake it; that our military course must be very conservative
until our strength had developed; that it was assumed we

--95--

could provide forces sufficiently trained to assist to a moderate degree in
backing up friendly Latin-American governments against Nazi inspired fifth
column movements." This part of the President's directive had the effect of
increasing the Army's concentration on preparations for military operations in
the Caribbean and toward the South Atlantic. Finally, the President stated that
even in the event of sudden and simultaneous action by Germany and Japan against
the United States, the nation should make every effort to continue the supply of
war material to Great Britain.40

As a second step, the President ten days later approved a statement of
national and military policy submitted to him by the Joint Board. This
statement, designed as a guide for the conversations that were to begin with
British staff officers three days later, defined "the present national position
of the United States" as follows:

A fundamental principle of United States policy is that
the Western Hemisphere remain secure against the extension in it of non-American
military and political control.

The United States has adopted the policy of affording material and diplomatic
assistance to the British Commonwealth in that nation's war against Germany.

The United States by diplomatic means has opposed any extension of Japanese
rule over additional territory.

The statement also included an assertion, "the American people as a whole
desire now to remain out of war, and to provide only material and economic aid
to Great Britain." But "should the United States be compelled to resort to war"
(the President's own phrasing), its broad military objective would be the defeat
of Germany; if Japan should also enter the war, United States operations in the
Pacific "would be conducted in such a manner as to facilitate the exertion of
its principal military effort in the Atlantic or navally in the Mediterranean."
Under all circumstances, the United States would need to maintain adequate
military dispositions to "prevent the extension in the Western Hemisphere of
European or Asiatic political and
military power."41

The New Outlook Toward the War

In charting the course of American policy toward the war, the President and
his advisers had acted in accordance with the existing state of public opinion.
A large segment of the American people still seemed clearly opposed to military
participation in the war, except in defense of Western

--96--

Hemisphere territory.42
This was recognized by General Marshall and Admiral Stark in the policy statement
approved by the President on 26 January. One of the strongest proponents of
material aid to Great Britain, William Allen White, late chairman of the
Committee To Defend America by Aiding the Allies, could write in early January
that he was against American convoy of ships, against sending American ships
loaded with contraband of war into belligerent waters, and "bitterly opposed to
our entrance into the war as matters stand now until
we are attacked."43
Even those administration leaders who advocated the early establishment of a North
Atlantic escort-of-convoy system acknowledged that it would first be necessary
to rouse responsible public opinion in favor
of it.44

The national policy decisions of January 1941 did not change the position of
Western Hemisphere defense as the basic military policy. Hemisphere defense
remained basic, but from January onward the nation's political and military
leaders built upon it a superstructure of further plans and measures that they
regarded as necessary to insure the security of the United States. After January
1941 the Army ceased to defend its manpower requirements, which were currently
fixed at 1,400,000 men, on the ground of hemisphere defense alone. The last
study that did so, written in January, noted that the current Army "defense
objective" called for fifty-four groups of combat aviation, twenty-seven
infantry divisions, four armored divisions, two cavalry divisions, and essential
corps, army, and GHQ troops. "A fighting force of this size," it argued,
"is barely sufficient to meet defense responsibilities and to provide limited
task forces for the support of South or Central American Governments threatened
by Fifth Column activities." Projecting augmentations of the Army to 2,800,000-man
and 4,000,000-man totals, it defended them as possibly necessary "to conduct
operations throughout the wide expanse of
two continents."45
Such validity as this study had lay in the fact that the United
States Army did not know what Hitler's real intentions were. The Chief of Staff,
for example, found a sharp divergence of opinion within the Military Intelligence
Division. One of its most trusted observers believed that Hitler would continue
the Drang nach Osten and engulf the Soviet Union, that he would eschew
conquests for which naval power was an essential, and

--97--

therefore that the United States need have relatively little fear of a direct
German military advance toward the New World. Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles, the
chief of G-2, disagreed with his subordinate. He thought "that Hitler's idea for
a new order is a world order dominated by the Germans, linked with Japanese
supremacy in the Far East." Hitler could not achieve that position without
gaining control of the Western Hemisphere--"it must be a world conquest or
nothing." General Miles added that his analysis did not imply the likelihood of
a German attack on the Western Hemisphere during 1941
or even 1942.46

The United States Army had good reason in any event to continue to
concentrate its attention on hemisphere defense plans and measures for many
months to come. The initial Army defense force for the first of the new British
bases to be occupied, Newfoundland, did not depart until January 1941, and none
of the other British bases received Army combat troops before April. Work on the
projected military air routes in Latin America had hardly begun. Alaska remained
almost defenseless. Even under the best of circumstances it was anticipated in
January 1941 that the 1,400,000-man Army could not be properly trained and
equipped until March 1942. To Secretary of War Stimson, the immediate outlook
seemed somber indeed. The chance of losing Great Britain and the British Fleet
still loomed very large. If the British Fleet were eliminated, Secretary Stimson
believed that the Germans could project their air and naval power across the
Atlantic to South America or even to Newfoundland; once established in these
positions, they could launch air attacks against the Caribbean and the
northeastern United States. Should Germany and Japan attack simultaneously, the
United States would not be able to withdraw its naval strength from the Pacific
to fend off the German attack in the Atlantic. And the Panama Canal, essential
to fluidity of naval movement between the oceans, was itself vulnerable to
sabotage and to surprise air attack.47
In the face of these circumstances and
possibilities, while it behooved the United States to do all it could to aid
Great Britain, it was also mandatory to push defense preparations in the Western
Hemisphere as rapidly as possible.

In the Anglo-American military staff meetings, known as the American-British
Conversations (ABC) and held in Washington between the end of January and the
end of March 1941, the American representatives held fast to the political and
military policies approved by the President during Janu-

--98--

ary. The report of these conversations, usually referred to by the short
title ABC-1, concluded that in case the United States should be compelled to
resort to war, it must in all eventualities maintain military dispositions that
would prevent any Old World nation from extending its political or military
power in the Western Hemisphere, the area of the world in which the United
States had "paramount territorial interests." With hemisphere defense assured,
the broad strategic objective of the United States, as of its associates, would
be the defeat of Germany and its allies. The Atlantic and European area would be
the decisive war theater, even if Japan embarked on armed aggression against
British, American, and Dutch positions in the
Far East.48

The ABC-1 report contained as an annex a "United States-British Commonwealth
Joint Basic War Plan," which prescribed Atlantic and Pacific areas within which
American military forces would have primary responsibility if the United States
joined in the war. In the Pacific, the American area of responsibility would
extend westward to include the Japanese home islands, but it would exclude the
Philippines and other Far Eastern territories in the path of Japan's projected
southward advance. Within this area, the Army's role would be almost wholly
defensive, on a line extending from Alaska (including Unalaska but excluding the
outer Aleutians) through Hawaii to Panama, and from thence down the west coast
of South America. In the Atlantic, the American area would consist of the two
western continents and adjacent islands (including
Greenland), and most of the Atlantic Ocean west of longitude 30°. Within this
Atlantic area, which corresponded roughly to the eastern limits of the Western
Hemisphere as currently understood, the plan allotted Army ground forces
the tasks of repelling enemy external attacks; supporting Latin American
republics "against invasion or political domination by the Axis Powers by
defeating or expelling enemy forces or forces supporting the enemy in the
Western Hemisphere"; relieving British forces in the Dutch West Indian islands
of Curacao and Aruba; garrisoning the new British bases; and building up forces
for an eventual offensive against Germany. Army air forces would have the
additional mission of aiding in destruction of Axis sea communications. Within
the British area of responsibility in the eastern Atlantic, United States Army
land and air forces would relieve the British in Iceland; Army air forces would
be established in Great Britain for offensive operations against Germany; one
reinforced

--99--

infantry division would relieve British troops in Northern Ireland,
and one reinforced infantry regiment would be sent as a token force to the
United Kingdom; and American air and naval bases in the British Isles and
elsewhere would be protected by Army ground and air detachments. The United
States Navy, in addition, accepted responsibility for occupying the Azores and
Cape Verde Islands, if those operations became necessary. The plan specified
that the Army commitments in the British Isles and Iceland could not be
undertaken before 1 September 1941.49

The ABC-1 report and joint War Plan gave the United States Army a general
mission and specific tasks that included all of its existing plans and projects
for hemisphere defense, and added thereto large-scale preparation for offensive
operations against Germany together with several additional tasks not
contemplated in existing Army war plans-the defense of Curacao, Aruba, and
Greenland in the Western Hemisphere and of Iceland and bases in the British
Isles in the Eastern Hemisphere. ABC-1 was the implementation of Admiral Stark's
Plan A of November 1940, with provision for transition to Plan D as rapidly as
circumstances required and permitted--the course of policy decided upon by the
United States Government in the winter of 1940-41.

On the basis of ABC-1, Army and Navy planners proceeded to draft a joint
RAINBOW 5 war plan, which they submitted to the
Joint Board for approval on 30
April 1941. The initial draft of the Army RAINBOW 5 Operations Plan, produced
during May, projected Western Hemisphere Army deployment and garrison strength
in numbers virtually identical with those provided in the existing RAINBOW 4
Operations Plan.50
ABC-1 and joint RAINBOW 5
in effect provided a long-range blueprint for the deployment and action of the
armed forces of the United States-after their existing state of training and
equipment had been substantially improved-in the event that the United States
entered the war or continued along the road toward direct participation in the war.

19.
In February 1941 the reinforced 1st, 30th, and 44th Divisions were
designated Task Forces A, B, and C, and subsequently, as Task Forces 1, 2, and 3.
The above summary is based on various papers, dated November 1940- April
1941, in WPD 4161-3, WPD 4161-4, WPD 4161-6, and AG 381 (11-12-40).

26.
Memo, Capt Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., for Gen Arnold, 25 Nov. 40;
Memo, Air Corps for WPD, 29 Nov 40, and atchd statement of "Basic Principles of Employment
of the Air Component of the Army in the Order of Their Priority,"
as approved by Gen Marshall.
Both in WPD 888-113.

27.
Memo, Adm Stark, CNO, for SN Knox, 12 Nov 40, WPD 4175-15.
The first version of the "Plan Dog Memorandum," as it was called, was dated 4 November 1940;
copies of both versions went to the President, as well as to the War Department.
See Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42,pp. 25-27,
for further details about Admiral Stark's paper and its aftermath.

28.
Memo, WPD for CofS, 13 Nov 40, WPD 4175-15.
This memorandum omitted from
a. the rest of Admiral Stark's phrase, "plus that of the remainder of the
Western Hemisphere."
Whether the omission was accidental or intentional is not
known. The joint estimate of December (see below) restored Admiral Stark's phraseology.

32.
Memo, WPD for CofS, 12 Nov 40;
Memo, WPD for CofS, 2 Dec 40.
Both in WPD 4175-15.
Memo, Lt Col William P. Scobey for Gen Gerow, WPD, 22 Nov 40, reviews
briefly the current status of the RAINBOW war plan;
and Memo, Col Joseph T. McNarney for Gen Gerow, WPD, 19 Dec 40,
summarizes the currently projected
deployment of Army forces under existing RAINBOW 4 plans.
These memorandums are
in OPD Exec 4, Item 5, RAINBOW Plans Folder.
The Navy at this time wished the Army to subscribe to a RAINBOW 3 plan that
the Navy had drafted, but the Army refused to do so, preferring not to commit
itself in any way to the concept of an offensive against Japan.
See Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations,pp. 121-22.

45.
WPD study, Jan. 41, title: The Possible Necessity for an Army of 1,400,000
Men and One of 4,000,000 Men, OPD Exec 4, Item 5, Army Folder. The figures used
in this study are identical with those in the revised statement of "defense
objectives" issued by The Adjutant General on 18 February 1941. AG 381 (2-17-41).

48.
The ABC-1 report, with annexes, is printed in full in Pearl Harbor Attack, Pt. 15,
pp. 1485-550. See Watson, Prewar Plans and Preparations,pp. 367-82,
and Matloff and Snell, Strategic Planning, 1941-42,
pp. 32-41,
for accounts of the ABC meetings.